Russia Honors the Spy Who Stole the A-Bomb

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times reports on the life of George Koval, codenamed Delmar, one of the most important spies to have infiltrated the Manhattan Project, the secret program that created the world's first nuclear weapon. President Putin recently granted Koval a posthumous Hero of the Russian Federation award, the highest honorary title that can be given to a Russian citizen. Koval was born in Iowa, spoke fluent American English, and played baseball. But he was also recruited and trained by the GRU, Russia's largest intelligence agency."

Comments

Pride?

[eldavojohn]

Historians say Mr. Putin may have cited Dr. Koval's accomplishments as a way to rekindle Russian pride. Honoring someone who's greatest feat in life is stealing another country's technology and betraying the people he lived with, served, played ball with & studied with?

That is one strange concept of 'pride.' I could name countless other Russians that deserve this kind of recognition more than a cold war spy.

Re:Pride?

[drgonzo59]

Imagine that he would have been a Russian scientist who knew that Russia was building a doomsday device and started spying for U.S. Eventually U.S. would have been able to build that device as well and a strategic equilibrium would be reached quickly.

Let me guess, that guy would have been a hero, right? Why? Because he was working for "God's" country and not for the "evil" Soviets.

Wake up! US is not the only country in the world and it doesn't have any sort of moral high ground. It might have had it before 2003, but it doesn't have it now after Iraq and Guantanamo and sending innocent people people to Egypt to be tortured ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition ).

Yeah, all the spies are thieves and the best ones are traitors. Someone's hero is another one's villain...

Re:that's awesome

[markass530]

The Japs enslaved foreign women and prostituted them out to their soldiers, and this was OK'd up to the highest levels of the military. the Japs commited war crimes as POLICY, I'm sure a fair number of american soldiers did some fucked up shit, but that's war. As far as dropping the A-Bomb, Fuck it, they started the shit, they should have surrendered if they didn't want to get fucked up, bottom line.

Re:Because this is a "progressive" site

[Loundry]

I'd rather call you "a complete and utter moron".

Very "progressive" of you. I mean that completely un-sarcastically.

Man, you are just hung up on this "progressive==teh evilist" shtick, aren't you?

Wishing murder, rape, and torture on other people is evil, and I'm not backing down on that one bit. Whether or not such expressions are A) commonplace, and B) tolerated in "progressive" circles is the pertinent question. I think it's valid to ask that question. Maybe you hate it because it makes "progressives" look bad, and you just can't stand that one bit.

Re:i know you're joking, but that comment is evil

[cptnapalm]

I'll withdraw the joke, but only in regards to Los Angeles.

San Francisco, on the other hand, is the Anti-American capital of America.

Your comment about social conservatives only demonstrates that you have no damn idea what you are talking about. A relative handful of crackpots do not make a representative sample. Does the relatively larger percentage of social liberals who make up the "America deserved it" for not engaging in social justice (a code phrase for a totalitarian anti-democratic secularized Inquisition) camp speak for all of them, indicating that all social liberals are treasonous?

Where the hell did NYC come up in my comment?

What the hell is a "propagandistic crime"?

Re:social liberals are idiots

[cptnapalm]

Well, you may not be evil but you certainly are stupid.